


Floor You Can't Fall Below

by Lizzygrant38



Category: Skam Norway
Genre: Boys Kissing, Childhood Friends, Even Bech Næsheim Loves Isak Valtersen, Falling In Love, Foster Care, M/M, Orphanage, Orphans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-04 19:51:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18350537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizzygrant38/pseuds/Lizzygrant38
Summary: Isak was fourteen when his father took off, fourteen when his mother Marianne reached her breaking point and became a frantic sobbing mess, her mental health reaching boiling point and fourteen when social services finally came and picked him up. He hadn't expected his father to take off, it had just happened out of the blue with no warning. One day he was there, the next he wasn't. After that, he had sort of guessed things would fall apart.~aka the AU where Isak and Even meet in a boy's home and become each others solace





	1. Metal Heart

Isak was fourteen when his father took off, fourteen when his mother Marianne reached her breaking point and became a frantic sobbing mess, her mental health reaching boiling point and fourteen when social services finally came and picked him up. He hadn't expected his father to take off, it had just happened out of the blue with no warning. One day he was there, the next he wasn't. After that, he had sort of guessed things would fall apart.

Then it became sullen time for Isak, bird trapped in a cardboard box, heavy wings beating against the confined spaces in the darkness. His name was lost. His name was nobody's son.

When social services came to get him, they gave him 15 minutes to collect everything that he wanted to take with him. The Valtersens never had many things, he took four books, his mother's old journal and his father's folding knife.

The drive was an extensive boring journey, Isak leant his head upon the window, focusing on the vibrations of the car and watching the rain drops race to prevent himself from crying.

Inside, the boys home smelt faintly of sweat and heavily of dust. He stepped inside, shouldering his backpack, all the other young boys stared at him like a hawk when he arrived causing him to fold in on himself, make himself small.  
He didn't want to get to know any of them, he just wanted to go home, before his dad drunk too much and before his mum would scream at him about the rapture of God.

A short and stumpy woman with short curly brown hair and false eyelashes with the glue visible led him down a creaky and narrow corridor to the last room at the end.

"You're in here." She grunted, pointing with her eerily long manicured nail. Narrowing her eyes at him she said, "play nice."

The boy was lounging on one of the two beds, jigging his foot up and down to what must be the beat of the music coming from his headphones that were placed upon his ears.  
He was pale with fair hair that was swooped up with gel. Isak figured he was older, maybe two or three years older.  
He seemed tall yet gangly, which he guessed was expected here considering the lack of notorious food.

He stared at Isak with blue eyes, removing his headphones while looking him up and down. He reached into his draw next to his bed and pulled a package out.  
He lit up a cigarette and told Isak to come and and close the door.

He did what he was told, he felt out of place here while the other boy looked right at home.

"Your name?" The boy asked, looking sideways as he blew smoke up into the air.

"Isak," He replied after a minute.

"Even," the older boy returned, 'you want a puff?' He offered stretching his arm out for Isak to take. "Wouldn't normally offer but I figure you might need it, it being your first day and all,"

Isak stared at him with wide eyes, taking the cigarette and taking in one long drag and blowing the smoke from his nostrils.

"Dead mama and drug addicted dad, what about you?" Even asked, "I was born addicted to heroine, I was out of rehab by 6 months old." He added with a smirk although the joking atmosphere he tried to introduce fell flat.

"Drunk dad and crazy mama.' Isak replied looking down and scuffing he shoes against the floorboards.  
Even nodded while resting back down on his bed and that seemed to be the way of that conversation.  
     
~

Even told him he didn't mind being here because it was the floor you couldn't fall below. He said that it's easier learning one set of rules rather than going from foster home to foster home and having to learn a new set every time. Isak could understand that logic.

Even didn't seem to talk to any of the other boys, whenever they had sport activities Even was always picked last. Isak heard mumbles of Even being a, 'freak' and the other boys stayed away because of talk Isak heard of Even being unhinged and unbalanced.  
Whenever Isak spotted Even he was drawing, drawing patterns and cartoons, connecting the dots into new constellations.

Isak never quite met anyone like Even. He was smart and seemed to know things that nobody else in the world did, completely random facts that constantly surprised Isak and perked up his interest. They talked about parallel universes even when the clock ticked past midnight and silly things like what type of musician different types of animals would most likely be which made Isak giggle and Even chuckle.  
He decided that Even seemed to see things differently, like he was looking through the lenses of a kaleidoscope wheel.

Maybe Isak saw things differently too because he didn't seem to see Even like everyone else did.  Isak hoped Even didn't see the way he stared at him in awe from a distance.

"You know you aren't half bad," Even mentioned, knocking his snapback off and ruffling isaks blonde locks, "just had to be it that you're off tomorrow."

And Isak already knew that was Evens way of saying, 'make sure you come back soon.'

Isak knew he would try.

~

Caseworkers changed but they were always similar. They took Isak to McDonald's, opened their files, asked their questions. McDonald's scared Isak, there were too many children, screaming and crying in their parents arms. Isak bitterly thought how happy he would've been to be held in his parents arms as they took him to McDonald's. 

He had nothing to say. This caseworker was a man with slanted eyes, a scruffy beard and a rough voice. He had a gold band on his ring finger, his nails were stubby and dirty.  
He found Isak a permanent placement. When he left the boys home, nobody said goodbye but Even stood on the front porch and watched him go, throwing his cigarette on the ground and crushing it under his trainers.

It took five freeways to get to his new home. The air inside van was thick and muggy.  
He watched the ranch houses pass by and the cattle roaming in enclosed fields. Kids on dirt bikes, kicking up clouds of dust.  
The social worker parked in front of a turquoise painted house, with a wide front yard, spider plants hung from the porch, chipped ornaments of frogs sat outside the bubble-glass door.  
The foster mother was a hard-faced woman with blond dry hair, liked a shredded easter basket. She held a small child with wide eyes and a purple shirt with a dinosaur printed on it.  
Behind her stood a boy, perhaps sixteen, he had a plain face and a plastic smile. He was his foster mother's son, Julian. 

In the TV room, the caseworker spread his papers on the coffee table, ready to bare the details of Isak's life to this hard-faced woman who told me to stay out in the backyard, and her preppy son.

Samantha and Daniel Dahl were his first real family. They ate chicken and salad with fresh tomatoes cut in quarters in the dining room at 6 o'clock sharp. Daniel was red-faced and quiet, him and Julian had similar mannerisms and often left Isak unsure when he'd stare at him from across the table.  
The dumbfounded toddler Liam would sit in his high chair, flapping his arms about getting carrot puree all over his bib.  
The radio was on when eating dinner and everybody talked but no one really listened. Isak stayed silent unless something was asked of him directly.

Isak was bored, it was summer so he didn't need to worry about school yet. Daniel worked every weekday in a department of Home Depot, Julian was often out with his pretentious friends from private school and Samantha was often out on lunch breaks with the other mother's from nursery.

Maybe it was the quiet or the loneliness but Isak couldn't help but think of the Boy's home, or more specifically, Even.  
He wasn't sure why his mind drifted back to him but being with Even and talking about meanings of the universe until sunbeams found them certainly beat the eeire silence of the night here. 

~

It was the fifth week in the Dahls home.  
He laid on the bed in the room he got to call his own, checkerd covers thrown mindlessly on the mattress, white walls and a wooden floor. It was basic and boring. 

Isak was throwing a tennis ball up and down when he heard muffled laughter coming from Julian's room, curious and with nothing else to entertain himself he followed the noise.  
His room was the one at the end of the hall, the closer he got a familiar smell became more prominent. He smelt marijuana instead of the usual fragrance of fresh air in the house.

There stood Julian in the middle of his vast room, gangly and pimply, he was wearing a cotton shirt with every button done up, bringing the spliff to his mouth and breathing out through his mouth and nostrils. 

What Isak would give to be high right now, to forget the dull ache of bitter loneliness, like rusted copper pennies on your tounge. Stale. To become mellow and dozy.  
Not even a minute after lingering outside his door did Julian notice Isak, his eyes going wide and hiding the spilff behind his back.

"Wh.. What do you want?" He tumbled over his words.

"Can I have a hit?" Isak asked,

"A hit of what?" Julian replied with a dumbfounded expression on his plain face.

Isak gave him a long blink, "do you want me to spell it out?" 

"Fine, fine, just don't tell my mother," He said passing the joint to Isak.

"Breaking mommy's house rules?" Isak sniggerd taking a drag, Julian blushed, embarrassed. 

It was afternoon when Isak's time at the Dahls reached it's deadline. The sky held blue and the low sun light washed everything around them in gold. His eyelids were heavy and his tounge slow, smoke swirled around his head like a halo.  
They were slouching on Julian's bed against the wall, finishing off their second joint.

Samantha caught them, Julian cried and whined, like music played on a saw. He blamed it all on Isak.  
Of course Julian was Samantha's golden child and narrowed down her final conclusion of Isak corrupting her child, influncing Julian to do reckless things despite Isak being two years younger than him.  
He thought maybe it was the obvious eye roll in response that finally got him sent back to the Boy's Home.

~

Even was sitting outside the maple tree in the shade when Isak got back, notebook on his lap and pencil in hand. He didn't greet him or welcome him back but instead chuckled, "you back already?" While tossing him a packet of biscuits he must've snuck from the canteen earlier that day.

Isak couldn't think of a better way to be welcomed back.


	2. Lived In Bars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: brief description of self harm, fighting

Isak leaned against the wall of the lunch court at the Boy's home. Isak bit into a crisp apple watching the other boys sitting, eating and chatting under the sun.  
He watched the boy on the bench take a safety pin to his arm, he opened his skin in lines. It healed over in pink pillowy tissue. He caught Isak looking but didn't flinch. It took him some time but Isak finally understood, he wanted it to show.

Across the courtyard on a bench sat a group of boys, older than Isak. They wore oversized loose tank tops, basketball shorts and trainers with holes in them. One boy had short cropped hair and a black eye blooming violets, the other had floppy hair and a striking face. They were playing cards as they're radio boomed rap across the yard. 

Next to the brick wall stood two boys, one with thick eyebrows that rested heavy on his forehead and coarse curly hair. Another with mid-length greasy blond hair tucked behind his ears, he face dotted with acne like a constellation of stars. They appeared more Isaks age he noted.

There sat Even on the bench in front, head down in his notebook, his hands moved without him, he couldn't sit without drawing something. Before Isak could comprehend what was happening, the boy with the short cropped hair and black eye was dangling his notebook above him. Even sat still. Stiff. Clenching his fists, eyes narrowed down and face red. 

"Whatcha got here?" Chris said in a patronizing voice, flicking through the pages and bringing it up to his nose, "the fuck is this meant to be?"  He pointed at the page, full of scribbles, doodle and words in black ink.

"You're sniffing too much of that white shit, that's what you're doing!" Chris edged on, grinning with menace, "that's why you're always actin' crazy,"

"Why do you have to be such a schmuck Schistad, just give it back," Even sighed, looking up at him.

"Why would I do that? This much more fun!" Chris smirked, "Oh oh! Is this a poem?" He exclaimed, amused.  
"Bells ringing through my ears, little lights flashing through my eyes, sailing on black waters - the fuck is this shit?" He laughed. 

"I'm not going to ask again, give it back," Even said in a calm voice, firmly and clearly.

Chris loosley gestured to Isak while saying, "Nah, what you probably do is write love poems with that little retard roomate-"

Before Chris could even finish his sentence, Even's fist connected with a solid crunch that probably shouldn't have made Isak smile, but it did. Blood smeared across Even's hand from Chris' explosive nose. Chris lay on the floor groaning, clutching his face.

"Don't touch my fucking stuff," Even spat grabbing his notebook and striding out of the now silent courtyard, all eyes following him.

~

That night Isak lay still on top of his blankets, listening to Even's soft breathing. He could tell by it's pace he was still awake.

"Does it hurt when you punch someone?" Isak whispered into the quiet and dark of the room.

It was silent for a minute, "only if you hit them properly," Even said, "have you ever been in a fight?" He asked

"Not really," Isak mumbled.

"Good, sometimes all I feel like I do is fight," he sighed, "People are gonna try you in here, you're young, and skinny, they could snap you like a twig," he said, "and cute with your doe eyes and shit," Isak blushed at that, "you gotta defend yourself, once they know you can you'll become less of an aim." 

Isak twisted the bed sheet with his fingers, you could hear the cicadas singing their songs at twilight from the window that was pushed ajar.  
Although, Even's slow even breathing was the most soothing sound of the night.

"Right, I guess I'll have to deal with that when that time comes," Isak mumbled into the still air.

"And if not I'll bash their fucking skulls in," Even said before turning his back to Isak and pulling the sheets over his body, writhing further down into the warmth of his bed.

Isak stared up into the darkness of the room, the moonlight cutting a slither of silver light onto the bare wall. A smile slowly spread across his face, his chest feeling warm. 

Isak figured it was a weird thing to feel warm and sappy about, someone offering to bash someone else's skulls in for you but yet he couldn't stop the fluttering in his stomach, like fireflies caught in a jar, the jar being his tummy.

He closed his eyes and let his slumber find him, smile still on his lips.

"Night Even," he whispered.

~

Summer hit full on like a hammer the day Isak finally followed Even's advice. Isak figured it was more about trying to impress Even then anything else so which is why when Chris came up to him at lunch, black eye now faded to a murky green tinge, plopping ungracefully down next to him and snatching Isaks brownie, his fucking brownie, the first treat he's got in weeks, shoving it into his gob in one go, munching and making obnoxious noises of approval right in his face.  
Isak so much stared at Chris with a vengeance for three seconds before hitting him in the face with a fist.  
Chris cried out a yelp, spitting out the brownie. It could've been quite comedic if Isak let on how much that punch actually hurt him but instead he held a steady stance and sneered at Chris like Even would, which he assumed must of looked ridiculous on him.

"Dont touch my fucking stuff!" Isak shouted and marching out the canteen.

Just as he exited the canteen doors he shook his hand, his face pinched, mumbling a quiet 'fuck' under his breathe. Punching fucking hurts.

~

When he sat down on his bed opposite Even, he saw the older boy's eyes zone into the sore redness of his knuckles.

"It hurt?" He asked.

"Nah," Isak replied with a shrug, Even if his heartbeat felt like it was pulsing in his knuckles.

Even gave him a look, a 'I don't believe you look'  and proceeded to pour his bottle of water on one of his t-shirts that were loosely thrown over his bed. He gently wrapped it around Isaks knuckles, the cold contrast soothing to his burning skin. 

Isak thought how Even mentioned that he fought a lot, that he'd throw punches a lot meaning he endured this aggravating pain a lot.

Isak thought even was pretty amazing like that, or maybe he just had knuckles of steel. Whatever the case, Isak still found Even amazing. Staring up with his soft doe eyes as Even cradled his wrapped hand against his thigh.


End file.
